House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 1997, with 43% of the vote.
Supply October 26th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out something about EI that completely stunned and staggered me.
Employers must pay their share to the EI fund. All businesses must pay. It is not only the employees who pay. The Government of Quebec is an employer and, as such, its share exceeds the real needs, so it contributes to reducing the federal deficit to the tune of $200 million a year.
I would like my colleague to comment on that.
Petitions October 26th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, the signatories of the petition I am tabling today are calling upon parliament to support Private Member's Bill C-304, which would strengthen the protection in the Canadian Bills of Rights for property rights.
Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act October 22nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry my colleague from Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques could not continue. I know he had some interesting and important things left to say.
I find it also regrettable that certain members of this House refused consent. I fear they did so for lack of interest in the subject. They do not realize the importance of the issue. They do not realize the issue is the proper protection of the personal information of Canadians, because the bill does not provide this protection.
In the past two days, I have had the opportunity to examine this illusory bill in greater depth. It is an illusion because, to be really protected, the public, consumers, will have to indicate directly, voluntarily and clearly that they do not want this information revealed.
If, by chance, the consumer fails to say “No, I do not want this information released”, it can be. When we buy something, we do not take the time to read all the details on the bill. We look at the cost and pay the bill.
If we are not careful, with this bill, there will be a little box we will forget to tick, and our information will be free to circulate.
This bill, I repeat, provides the illusion of protection. In fact, it exists explicitly to promote electronic commerce. It is not there to protect personal information. Protecting personal information is only of secondary importance. This is a kind of encouragement that the bill gives consumers by telling them: “Do not be afraid of using electronic commerce, everything will be okay. Your transactions will not be intercepted. You do not have to fear that the information you will give might be disclosed. You have nothing to fear.”
Unfortunately, reality is quite different. The main part of this bill is contained in a schedule. The bill refers constantly to Schedule 1 containing an ethics code essentially dictated by a group of industry, business and trade representatives.
The problem is that the schedule uses the word “should” and that the bill expressly states that the word “should”, when used in Schedule 1, indicates a recommendation and does not impose an obligation. This means that the bill gives a false sense of security and amounts to wishful thinking, as it can be circumvented by those who wish to do so. Worse yet, Schedule 1 can be amended according to the wishes of industry and business.
Some things are appalling. We talked about this on Monday. For four years now, Quebec has had an act which protects personal information given by citizens to a private business, not only in a commercial context but in any context. This act makes Quebec a leader in this area.
On Monday, I heard a government member declare in this House that Canada would be on the cutting edge with Bill C-54. On the contrary, it is Quebec which has been on the cutting edge for the last four years. Canada will not even be a close second because the European Community has much better provisions than what is found in Bill C-54.
This is why I said, on Monday, that the bill should be sent back to the drawing board. This bill should be withdrawn. The minister should go back to the drawing board with the protection of citizens in mind. This could only enhance electronic commerce.
Things have been turned upside down. Fortunately, an amendment was put forward today suggesting that the minister go back to the drawing board. We are not asking the minister a favour. The citizens of Canada are not, through us, asking the minister a favour. They are simply asking that Canada be served as well as we are in Quebec. But it is more than that. Should this bill be enacted, Quebec could face some significant problems.
As we all know, federal laws often have precedence over provincial laws. There are federally incorporated companies in Quebec and in the rest of Canada. These corporations would prefer without a doubt to be subject to a toothless law like this bill rather than to a strong, well structured law made to protect all citizens.
This is a major problem. This bill is ill-conceived and misdirected. The government thinks it can help electronic commerce by giving illusions to consumers. This will not work. Worse, we might jeopardize a good situation which has existed in Quebec for the last four years and which could and should have guided the minister. Our amendment gives the minister an opportunity to review this bill, to rework it and eventually, to resubmit it to this House.
The other day I heard an honourable member—from the government benches, obviously—claim that, if even if we accepted this bill, we could send it back to committee and improve it. You know, and I know and most of the members in this House should know that a bill cannot be modified in committee beyond its original scope. Its objective is to promote electronic commerce.
If we try to give additional dimensions to this bill, for example the protection of personal information given to non-profit organizations, or the protection of medical, tax and other information, we are completely altering the framework of the bill before us by giving it a scope that it does not currently have. This is unacceptable and not allowed under the Standing Orders of the House when we work in committee.
So, if this bill passes second reading, we enter a dead end. We are going to put in place a bad law that will have perverse effects and will not meet the conditions required in today's economy to compete not only domestically, but internationally. Quebec took the lead in this area four years ago.
In international trade, countries whose laws are more responsible than the legislation we have before us will require that their companies transmit information only to countries whose laws are equally responsible. This legislation will not be and, therefore, some countries will most likely put an embargo on transactions with Canadian citizens and businesses.
Members do not want that, I do not want it. Quebec already has a responsible law.
Mr. Speaker, I see that you are going to interrupt me, may I ask unanimous consent to answer questions?
Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act October 19th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Frontenac—Mégantic spoke eloquently of the flaws we see in this bill.
We mentioned on several occasions that Quebec has its own act, which works well, it is efficient and truly protects consumers. For the benefit of the House and in keeping with my colleague's comments, I would like to read a few sections from the current Quebec act. This might inspire the House to make the necessary improvements to Bill C-54.
This is part IV, section 27 of the Quebec Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector. Section 27 states: “Any business manager who has a file on someone must, when requested by the person concerned, confirm its existence and release to said individual any personal information it contains”.
You and I, every member of the House and the public at large know that we have a file in many organizations. It may happen that the information on file is wrong, which might have an impact on our capacity to enjoy life; for instance a credit file might contain errors which might result in a person being denied or looked at in a funny way when applying for a credit card or a loan, without having a clue as to why or how to rectify the situation.
This cannot happen in Quebec. In Quebec an individual can ask for confirmation of the file and ask the bank manager: “Where did you get the information that my credit is bad?” “I got it in such or such a place”, he will answer.
I quote section 28: “Besides the rights provided for in paragraph 40(1)of the Quebec Civil Code, the individual concerned may have any personal information concerning him or her erased if its gathering was not authorized by law”.
So, I go where the records are kept and realize some data have been included without my knowledge. I never authorized any company or body to disclose such data to the agency and I can ask that it be withdrawn without prejudice to other legal action that I might take to ensure that those who broke the law are adequately punished.
Under section 29, anyone who operates a business and keeps personal records on other individuals must take proper measures to ensure that they can exercise their rights under Quebec's Civil Code as well as under this act. Moreover, the person must inform the public where it may consult these records and how to do so.
Quebeckers are protected by strong legislation, the main purpose of which is to protect the public. This is obviously not the purpose of Bill C-54.
I would like my colleague, the member for Frontenac—Mégantic, to tell me what he thinks about the wide discrepancy between the meagre protection proposed for Canadians and the concrete, solid and honest protection provided for Quebeckers.
Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act October 19th, 1998
Madam Speaker, as I said earlier, in Quebec, information is protected beyond Quebec's borders by requiring those contracted to gather it to provide this protection.
I would like to address another aspect of international trade and share my concerns with the member for Wentworth—Burlington.
When I engage in a transaction on the Internet, I do not always know where my query will take me. Will it be somewhere in the United States, Asia, Africa or Australia? I cannot really tell. It does not matter anyway. When a query is made it travels through phone lines and satellites to a place that may be totally different from the one indicated on the screen.
What recourse do I have if I am not satisfied with the transaction I just completed? In Quebec, we have the Consumer Protection Act. In Canada, representations can be made before a civil court in one province or another. In the United States, remedies can probably be sought through some bilateral agreement.
But the countries with which we have not signed agreements in this area outnumber those with which we have. The net result is that any real development in electronic commerce can only take place if there are multilateral agreements between participating countries—and we hope there will be a great many—ensuring a degree of consumer protection similar to the one enjoyed here, at home, regarding the quality of the service or product and the protection of personal information.
For example, I conduct a transaction, and my name, address, telephone number, credit card number, social insurance number and heaven only knows what else ends up in Timbuktu. From there it goes to Ankara, and Ankara sends it on to Moscow. In the twinkling of an eye, there is information on me all over the world, which does nothing to make my eyes twinkle, because from then on anyone in the world can use my name and other information in ways I would not necessarily want them to.
In my opinion, Bill C-54 does not provide Canadians with sufficient protection as far as international commerce and exchanges with other countries are concerned. There ought to be some guidelines for Canadian businesses on how to proceed in order to ensure service quality and protect information while doing business electronically.
The bill is extremely narrow, in fact. It should be far broader, if there is any real desire to promote electronic commerce as it deserves, while providing consumers with proper protection of their rights as consumers and as citizens entitled to privacy. What are the thoughts of my colleague from Wentworth—Burlington on this?
Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act October 19th, 1998
Madam Speaker, the member for Wentworth—Burlington is not making this up. What he told us really goes on. It actually does happen. I would like to point out to the House, however, that when a member of the public provides personal information in Quebec, even to a charitable organization, that organization is not permitted by law to pass it on or use it for other purposes. Quebeckers are well protected in this regard.
What the member for Wentworth—Burlington told us about is not going on in Quebec. The legislation is four years old. Quebeckers are well protected. But it can happen in Canada. Bill C-54 now before us will not prevent what the member opposite just described from happening.
That is why I mentioned earlier that the bill has a serious shortcoming. It is not worthy of Canadians, who deserve the same protection as Quebeckers.
Quebec's legislation goes much further. In Quebec, a business that has information and must deal with a business in another country, not just in Canada or in the United States, and must, in the course of the transaction, provide personal information it obtained in Quebec, must have signed an agreement with the individual outside the country to whom the information is being transmitted that that information will continue to be protected to the same extent that it was in Quebec.
Is that not extraordinary? Is it not extraordinary that the people of Quebec have this type of protection of their personal information? Why is the House letting a bill like this one remain so incomplete as to not deal with the real risks faced by Canadians and as described by the member for Wentworth—Burlington?
Sending the bill to committee for re-examination will not change it. I would like to explain to my colleague that it cannot change the nature of the legislation before the House. The point raised by my colleague is in fact intended to change the nature of the bill to make it more encompassing. The bill, obviously, is intended to facilitate and promote electronic commerce.
What my colleague has referred to aims at protecting personal information in electronic commerce or elsewhere.
This is why, even in committee, this bill cannot be amended as substantially as necessary, as my colleague mentioned.
So, my question is: does he not agree that this bill should be returned to the drawing board and that a real bill should be returned to the House to address the serious concerns he raised and I share?
Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act October 19th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I both agree and disagree with my colleague.
First, I agree with his comments. He is right. This bill is so badly put together that the only winners will be lawyers. The losers will be the consumers. Businesses will be faced with legal bills because they will have to defend themselves against the lawsuits of disgruntled consumers who, having read the legislation, will assume that they have rights to assert.
The bill being what it is, imprecise and badly put together, the courts will have to arbitrate conflicts between consumers and businesses. Lawyers are going to make money to a degree you won't believe with legislation such as this.
Where I disagree with my colleague is when he says that the bill should go back to the drawing board if you will, that it should be fixed up in committee. In my opinion it is beyond fixing. It has to go back to the drawing board, yes, but we have to start “from scratch”.
We have to base the legislation on the Quebec example, we have to use the Quebec experience, to give Canadians the legislation they deserve, a legislation on par with the one Quebeckers already enjoy.
There might be more questions, maybe from my colleague again, therefore, I am asking for unanimous consent to carry on with the questions and comments period for a short while.
Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act October 19th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my Liberal colleague very much.
He is right. The problem with this bill is Schedule 1, which says certain things but does not say others. This schedule is based on the so-called CSA code, which is ultimately set up by private business and based on goodwill.
In other terms, we are put in the awkward position of having a group of businesses deciding what is good or bad for consumers. We are putting the cart before the horse. It is a bit like having the fox in charge of the chicken coop. Chickens do not get a whole lot of protection that way. But consumers should not be compared to chickens. Consumers have rights, they are human beings and citizens, and they deserve a better approach than the one in Schedule 1.
There is another problem with Schedule 1, and it will be the subject of my question to my colleague who kindly asked me to put a question to him.
Section 5.2 says that the word “should”, when used in Schedule 1, indicates a recommendation and does not impose an obligation. That word is all over the place in schedule 1.
As if it were not bad enough to have the fox in charge of the chicken coop, the fox does not even have to abide by the building code. It could do it, but only if it feels like it.
Would my colleague care to comment?
Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act October 19th, 1998
We are, we are.
Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act October 19th, 1998
Indeed, toothless. I see that the Liberal member knows exactly what I mean.
In any case, the Bloc Quebecois can absolutely not support this bill, because it does not deserve to go any further. In fact, the government should go back to the drawing board, review its objectives, which should be to allow or ensure the protection of personal information so as to promote, among other things, electronic commerce, instead of promoting electronic commerce by, among other measures, protecting personal information more or less adequately.
The Bloc's position is clear: take the bill back to the drawing board, let the minister do his homework and then come up with a bill that will meet the expectations of Canadians and that will serve them as well as Quebeckers have been served for the past four years.